Beautifully Insane
by Bakura's Guardian Angel
Summary: Insane people are always sure that they are fine." Ryou is a patient at an asylum for claiming that he has a demon living inside of him. After three long years he decides it's time he got out of The Institute, and the demon inside him couldn't agree more


A/N:This idea itself was a long time in coming. My actual inspiration for it hit me a few days ago. It's AU...I guess. :)

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_''Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy." ~__Nora Ephron _

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The clock struck noon. A small buzz went off, echoing around the perfectly square room, destroying its perfect silence, and yet it seemed muffled, drowned in the darkness of a windowless, lightless, space. A light—small, red, above the door—flicked on, spilling a crimson ink over the walls, the floor, and the person sitting in the corner. A click resounded, and the room's occupant shifted imperceptibly, his eyes lifted slowly from the red-tinged floor to the wall to the door, illuminated by the blood-red light, and he knew it would open.

He sat motionlessly, anticipating.

The buzz sounded again. Another click, louder this time. Another lock opened. Another obstacle removed. Closer. _Closer_. _**Closer**_.

The lights, fluorescent and blinding, turned on suddenly. The calm red disappeared with the appearance of the harsher white light. It reflected off the white walls, the white bed, the white furniture, the white-clad, white-haired, white-skinned person.

The figure in the corner hissed in pain and buried his head in his arms. He squeezed his right hand tighter and tighter, screwing his eyes shut, fighting the light that was trying to blind him and hurt him. Coherency momentarily lost its meaning (_Who am I? Where am I? What am I?)_. Just like yesterday. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before.

And the door opened.

(Just like yesterday. And the day before. And the day before…)

A young nurse stepped in, carrying a tray. "Good afternoon, Bakura-san."

"Please, Naomi. Don't call me that." Said the figure softly, who had lifted his head slowly as his eyes adjusted, and was now looking at her calmly. Only a hint of edginess in his gaze, a slight twist to the way his jaw was clenched so tightly, revealed his inner mental turmoil. Of course the nurse didn't notice though. He'd relaxed his posture, leaning casually against the wall, his hands folded, one placed carefully over the other, in his lap. The white uniform he wore matched the wall behind him perfectly, and with these elements together the teen was almost lost in the whiteness of it, his pale skin hardly a few shades off from the perfect white—he'd been in this room so long…he hadn't seen the sun in so long…he hadn't lived in so long…

His eyes, the pupils mere pinpricks in the midst of the dark brown irises, followed the young nurse, watching her every move with interest.

"Sorry, Ryou-kun, I'm forgetful." She said with a smile, brushing her dark caramel hair out of her face with one hand. Her eyes, so dark they were almost black, twinkled happily. Obviously she liked her job. How old was she, seventeen, eighteen? She couldn't have been too old. She looked like she was still in High School. She was in training here at the institute then. She might not older than him…maybe…

She moved to the side of the room where a small table was set up and placed the tray she carried in her arms on it casually. She frowned as she set it down, tracing her fingers along some deep jagged scratches that were gouged into the brown wood beneath the white paint, revealing the table's true colors. She considered speaking to the patient about it…but then, they were just a few scratches. No point in making a fuss. She picked up the small pile of pills that was beside a glass of water and a stack of crackers.

Handing them to the teen, who accepted them with a disgusted look, she dragged a fold-out chair from where it was leaned against the wall and set it up beside her patient, still sitting on the floor. She straddled it, smoothing her light green scrubs, and casually pulling the half-sized clipboard from where it hung on a small clip on her waste.

"Alright." She said, pulling the lid of the pen off to start taking her notes of her regular chats with Ryou Bakura. "It's been three days since I saw you right?" She began.

Brown eyes focused on her for a moment, before they drifted down to his lap sightlessly. "Why do you work here, Naomi? Why not let the older nurses bring me my pills and find a less dull occupation?" He asked, disregarding her question and setting the crackers and water on the ground beside himself.

"Well, I enjoy working with people. And I think that the mind is fascinating. So here, I get to work with people who have minds that are more special than others."

A grim smile turned the boy's lips upward in a slight curve. "Special?" He asked softly, his eyes still fixed on his hands.

"Well yes. Every person here at the institute is a very special and unique person." She said comfortingly.

"I gues that's one way to put it..." He said quietly. Then he lifted his head and he turned it so that his face was angled and his eyes were gazing at nowhere in particular. "Tell me, Naomi. Do you think that I'm insane?"

"You asked me this last time." (and the time before that, and the time before that) "I don't think you're insane Ryou. I just think that you see things differently than the rest of us." Naomi said patiently with a small laugh.

"And is that a bad thing, to have insight into what you, and other normal people, don't?" He said gently.

"Of course not." Naomi said, carefully writing down all that Ryou said. She was treading on thin ice. The patients in the institute were here because they were unstable… Ryou had yet to prove this instability to _her_, but she wasn't about to disregard his record just because she hadn't personally seen the evidence... Even if she could see no way this proper, polite English boy could in any way be _dangerous. _

"If I'm not _insane_…then why keep me here? Why keep me in isolation?" He pressed, speaking softly, as though to himself.

"They aren't sure what's wrong yet. They need to find out so that you don't hurt yourself. It's all for your safety." Naomi assured him. "So, I noticed that your mirror is missing." She said then, changing the subject casually. She pointed to one wall where a rectangle of light gray, unpainted concrete, indicated where a full-body mirror had once hung.

"Oh." Ryou said, his voice so laid-back and detached he seemed to only be partially in the conversation. "Yes. It fell off the wall and shattered. I don't really mind. It was…bothering me."

"Why is that?" She asked, leaning forward, intrigued.

"How old are you, Naomi?" Ryou said abruptly, bringing another halting subject change to their conversation.

"I'll be turning seventeen this month." She said. "But why do you ask?"

He smiled, his eyes perceptive. "Just curious… I'm surprised that you work here when you're so young. I'm almost eighteen myself. Did you know that I never had the chance to graduate High School? I was put in here just after my Freshman year… It seems so long ago now…" he trailed off.

"I'm sorry." Naomi said, pausing to let the words sink in and so not sound rude. She wrote down Ryou's ramblings quietly. Then she voiced her earlier question again. "The mirror, Ryou? Why did it bother you?"

"The mirror." He repeated, and stood up slowly, as though not sure his legs would support him. He walked over to the blank gray spot on the wall, his stride almost graceful with how fluid the motion was. Both his hands were clenched tightly.

Standing in front of the wall as though the mirror were still there he said, "Do you want to know why it bothered me? Of course you do, or you wouldn't have asked." He laughed softly. "Well I'll tell you why, Naomi. It's because I would look in the mirror every day and see what I'd been reduced to. I guess that it's hard for others to look at me, to see what I see… I see differently after all." She raised an eyebrow at his sardonic tone.

"When I first came here a nurse told me I was beautiful you know. I thanked her, of course, but I personally don't believe being told you're beautiful is a compliment, not for a boy anyways. But it was something, something good, and so I'd look in the mirror and try to see more than the white uniform and more than the white room. I'd try to be beautiful like that nurse told me I was. Every day for three and a half years. But you know, even after all that I still don't see anything good in mirrors Naomi. I never did, I don't think I ever will. There's no beauty, there's no goodness…

"All I see are distorted reflections." He finished after a pause.

Ryou's ramblings didn't make very much sense to Naomi, but she wrote them down anyways. Later all her notes would be compared to other conversations, analyzed, and they would continue to search for the problem. What was wrong? What glitch did this boy have in his head that made him the way he was? He was strange of course, but there was more then that, there _had _to be. Most importantly, was there a cure for it?

She lifted her gaze from her scribbled notations back to Ryou, who still faced the wall. His head was bowed slightly, his hair obscuring his face. He'd lifted one of his clenched hands, his left hand, opening it to reveal the pills, still sitting uneaten in his palm.

"One-thousand-two-hundred-and-ninety-three days." Ryou sighed. "That's how long I've been in here. I leave once a day to use the restroom. I get three meals, and three pills. Three-thousand-eight-hundred-and-seventy-nine pills in all. I've had thirty-three different nurses, and eight doctors." He sighed again, a soft whisper of breath, barely audible. "I have no family. I have…no friends." His voice was slightly hitched as he said the last. His voice changed slightly then, becoming almost a whimper, and he clenched his hand around the pills again as though to hide them from sight. He turned his face towards her and there was a pain in his eyes. "Do you know what it's like to have no friends, Naomi?"

Her heart wrenched in sympathy. _He knows_ she thought suddenly _he understands…most of the people in this place are too out of it, too insane, to understand their situation. _She bit her lip as he turned away from her. _Why is this boy in here, what could he have possibly done to deserve this?_

She tossed a wary glance up at the camera in the corner of the room. It was small, nearly invisible (made of white plastic), and it recorded all that took place in the room. Guards and doctors stood by, watching, so that if a patient became dangerous or sick during the course of the psychoanalysis action could be taken immediately. Naomi was aware that her managers wouldn't approve of her interacting with Ryou on a personal level. She was supposed to ask questions, learn his mind inside and out, but she'd been warned against becoming attached to any of the patients. Too dangerous for her, she was so young, but she couldn't stand seeing this teen hurting so much!

"Ryou…" She set the clipboard down and went to stand beside the teen. He stood almost six inches taller than her, she realized. She hadn't noticed when he was sitting on the floor. "Ryou, it's okay." She said, putting a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. "Listen, the doctors are working on it. They're going to find out what's wrong, and they're going to let you out. You just have to be patient, you know?"

He turned his face to look at her forlornly. His left hand opened, the pills fell forgotten to the floor, and he lifted his hand to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes. Leaning in slightly he said, "Don't hate me, Naomi. I just need someone…please…" Before she could ask him what he meant he'd strung his left hand through her hair and leaned in, pressing his lips against hers. Shocked by Ryou's abruptness, it took her a moment to realize a few things.

First, she was fired. More than fired. She was going to get the lecture of her life _and_ be fired. And second, why wasn't someone doing something? The guards and doctors should've long since come to take her away.

Ryou took a step forward, his lips still against hers, his hair brushing her face, and Naomi felt the wall against her back. And then she felt something cold against her throat and her breath latched. She gasped as a sliver of pain slid over the skin of her neck.

The teen's mouth left hers and was suddenly at her ear. "Teenage girls are so easy to manipulate." He laughed, not the gentle laugh from before, but a cold laughter. It was different…amused…angry. She struggled slightly, but his left hand held her head still and his right was pressing against her neck. He whispered, _"_Please cooperate, Naomi. I wouldn't want to stain your uniform."

"What…are you doing?" She asked breathlessly, staring up at him. His eyes glinted, narrowing slightly. There was a sharp pressure against her neck again and her eyes flicked down. Ryou held a long jagged shard of reflective glass in his hand, which she could now see, was red with blood. Ryou's blood. He'd held it clenched in his fist so tightly that it had shredded the skin of his palm, and now its dangerously sharp edge was pressed at an angle against her throat.

"A memento from my shattered mirror." He said in amusement. "Now, where were we? Ah, yes, I believe we were discussing my departure."

"The guards are going to—"

"Not quite. The cameras aren't operable…since yesterday. They're working on it of course, but they aren't concerned. I haven't been a hazard to anyone. Recently." He had a smirk on his face, and Naomi knew immediately what had happened.

"You're…you have…multiple personalities." She gagged against the glass that was choking her painfully.

"Oh that mental disorder that we're accused of having, or one of them at least. Yes, I suppose_ to your eyes_ that _is_ how it would seem. But you fail to see that I'm more than a personality." His face twisted in anger, but his eyes widened slightly, making him look sad. "One-thousand-two-hundred-and-ninety-three days, Naomi. More than three _years_! I told them the truth. I sent _seven_ of my friends into comas, all in one night. And I know that it wasn't my fault, but it still was not just a coincidence! When I confessed to it, and told them about _us_ they called me crazy! Then someone ended up worse than comatose, Naomi. I killed someone. It was an accident, and, just like before, I knew that it wasn't my fault, so I went and I told them. I tried to explain it, and it was the truth. Every single word of it! _But they said I was insane_."

His voice had dropped to a hiss, and his eyes were narrowed to slits. "They isolated me in this asylum. They put me in the dark! I haven't seen the sun in three years because I'm too dangerous to be let outside. I haven't talked to my father in three years because he refuses to associate with me now that I'm allegedly unstable. I've tried to prove I'm not a threat to them, to anyone! I've done everything they asked. I choked down all their blasted medication and let them question me and let the doctors hook me up to hundreds of different machines, and for what!?"

"Ryou, listen, you need to calm down." Naomi whispered, holding up her hands submissively.

"We aren't insane!" He screamed, silencing her, and shoving the glass harder against her skin. Ice-cold pain sliced through her nerves and she felt the warmth of her own blood seep down her neck. "There is nothing wrong with me!" Ryou said, his voice quiet again, begging her to believe him, his face warped in distress and obvious torment. "I just…I just want to _live_. I want to get out of here _so badly_. I need it!" He moaned, tears sliding from his dark brown eyes.

"Being in here is for your own safety, Ryou-kun. It's for _you_. They want to help you; they're trying to find the problem." Naomi said, reaching a hand up cautiously to touch his face.

His eyes flashed. "You're lying! It's not for me... If it was they would listen to me. They would let me out! Why don't you people get it? There _is no problem! _You can't fix me because I'm not broken! Being in here isn't helping me, Naomi. It is _killing_ me. This, locking me up in here, claiming to be 'trying to help me' but abandoning me instead, like a forgotten doll left to gather dust in a closet, it's destroying everything I am…" His distressed begging voice changed abruptly and he laughed loudly, laughter that was cold; completely and utterly deranged.

"Oh no, we're perfectly sane, Naomi… But we're on the edge now, you see. Too much time to think, too much time and nothing to do with it… That's bad for people, you know. We've been driven this close." He indicated with his fingers, still chuckling. "Landlord will not be able to handle it much longer. And so we're getting out. Today, before we have an actual reason to be in here. Now, why don't you take us to the door?"

Naomi shifted, stiffening as Ryou slid behind her to keep the shattered mirror piece at her throat. She walked forward to the door slowly, halting when Ryou pulled the glass against her throat sharply. "Now," He whispered. "I'm going to stand beside you, and we're going to act normal, Naomi. You're just taking me outside to sit on the grass for a few minutes. Relax, look calm, we have permission if anyone asks. Do you understand?"

"Please, don't do this Ryou." Naomi said softly, glancing up to the teen that had come to stand at her left side so that he could hold the glass against her ribs.

"Sorry, Naomi, but begging will do nothing. I've waited for this chance for months." He said, a smile that could almost pass as apologetic on his face. And then the knifelike glass slid along her scrubs, cutting through and brushing sharply against her skin, and she pressed a button. The lights turned out, the red light above the door went on, and the door opened with a squeak.

They walked slowly, Ryou feigning instability and leaning heavily on Naomi, keeping the glass right on her skin. They passed other rooms, other nurses and doctors, other patients being led to some place or another. Most of them were staring blankly at nothing, or were babbling incoherently.

One was chatting amiably to no one, answering and even gesturing to a person who didn't exist. Another was walking down the hall beside the nurse when they suddenly crumbled into a ball on the floor and began whimpering, whispering about 'the voices'. Yet another was acting like they were five, although they must've been at least in their forties.

Almost all of them were old. None were as young as Ryou.

"I don't belong here, Naomi." Ryou whispered forlornly, his behavior almost like it was before he'd pulled his makeshift knife on her and become the lethal and psychotic patient who actually _did_ have reason to be in the institute. His lips brushed her ear and he leaned on her shoulder almost desperately. "Look at them. I'm not like these people!" he begged gently, turning his brown eyes on her. They were creased with concern. "I'm not insane like them. Nothing's wrong in my head."

"I believe you, Ryou." She whispered back, lying outright, but maintaining her act. She reached out and grasped Ryou's left hand, squeezing it, and trying to ignore the icy coldness of the glass grazing her ribs. "I believe you." She repeated.

"Hanajima-san, where do you think you're taking that patient?" Called a stern voice behind them.

Naomi stopped, stiffening as the glass pressed between two of her ribs sharply. They turned and Ryou turned his face so his head was resting on Naomi's shoulder, invisible to the doctor who was jogging up to them.

"I just was taking Bakura-san outside to enjoy the warm weather. Just for a few minutes." She said carefully, meeting the gaze of the doctor.

The doctor frowned, his green eyes flitting from the nurse to the patient hanging on her shoulder. "This is your study-patient isn't it?"

"Well, yes." Naomi said. "But I just thought—"

"You are supposed to speak with the patient and care for his needs, not take him on walks." The doctor reprimanded her.

Naomi winced, and then covered it up by forcing a bubbly laugh. "I know, but he just was telling me how he had never gotten the chance to go outside…I think. He rambles sometimes you know. The other doctors didn't mind when I asked them." She put in.

"You spoke with the other doctors about this and they Okayed it?" He asked, eyeing her. "Bakura-san _is _on the list of confirmed 'dangerous' patients, Naomi. Are you sure you can handle him?"

"The doctors didn't seem worried, Nama-sensei. And Bakura-san is harmless. He wouldn't hurt a fly." She felt Ryou's shoulders shake and realized he was laughing.

"Well…" the doctor still looked unsure. "I guess…if the other doctors told you it was fine, and if you're sure you can handle it…then you can take him outside. But only for ten minutes, Naomi. No more." He nodded and turned back down the hall, jogging to aid a nurse who was struggling to carry a patient who was mumbling and wouldn't walk anymore.

"Thank you Naomi." Ryou lifted his head and looked at her. For half a second his face was twisted into a sadistic grin that sent a shiver down her spine and then it seemed to melt into the face of a child, and Ryou—pure innocent out-of-his-mind Ryou—was smiling like a teenager who'd just gotten their first date. He bit his lip. "I'm so close!" He whispered.

Naomi frowned, confusion and adrenaline causing her to feel nauseous. This teenager was insane, obviously, and she was helping him (albeit unwillingly) to escape. She was letting a psychopath loose! She turned her face, looking up at her patient's eager gaze, fixed ahead. He looked like any normal person, but there was that edgy cornered-animal look about him… And she now knew first hand how fast he could go from kind Ryou to lethal Ryou. She only had one more chance.

They turned a corner.

And the door lay before them. Bright sunlight was streaming in through the plate-glass windowed doors. Ryou tugged Naomi ahead slightly, rushing. Escape was so close, just beyond his fingertips now. The doors slid open mechanically…and they were outside.

Ryou immediately released her, stepping forward into the sun, forgetting her in an instant as the warmth of the flaming sky fell over him like a soft comforting blanket. A breeze was blowing briskly, throwing leaves and pink cherry blossoms into the air. It picked up the teen's hair and made it blow wildly around his face. Naomi's own hair fluttered around her shoulders playfully. Slowly she stepped back, and then reached her hand into the pocket of her green scrubs.

"We're out…" Ryou whispered. Happiness pervaded every thought in Ryou's head. He held up his hands, his right still clenched around the glass that was flecked with his own blood. He felt the warmth of the sun on him, dappling his skin with bright patches of gentle golden sunlight. He closed his eyes, let himself melt in it, and then opened them again, taking in the millions of colors that sparkled like a kaleidoscope being turned in every direction. So many shades of red and green and blue and brown, he could hardly imagine so many colors. There were no white concrete walls, no white bed, no white door with a red flashing light above it. Just beauty, all around him. Life, living, breathing, freedom.

Below the happiness was exultant victory. Finally, finally, _finally!_ They'd been left to sit and rot in that prison for far too long, but no one could contain them forever. No one could stop fate. It paid off, their patience. Now they could finally continue with their plans that had, for so long, been put on hold. And they'd both play their parts so—

A piercing sliver of pain slid under the skin at the base of his neck. "What was…?" He tried to say, but the words slurred in his mouth. His tongue suddenly felt swollen and dry. Heat blossomed in his veins, and then the warmth left his fingertips and coldness began to travel up his body. His vision became clouded, gray, fading slowly. Lead weighted his limbs, and he felt so tired. Too tired…he couldn't feel the sun anymore, couldn't feel the breeze on his pale skin. He turned too quickly and almost fell over with fatigue. Suddenly there were strong sets of arms wrapping around his body. He screamed internally, but couldn't make any words come out of his mouth. Why couldn't he move?

Feeling numb, his gaze fell to Naomi's face.

Tears were brimming in her eyes, and she looked so…guilty. "Naomi?" he tried to ask, the word sounding drunken even to himself. She lifted her hand and opened it, revealing a long empty syringe, a thin silver needle adorning the end.

"I'm so sorry, Ryou-kun." She said, her voice muffled, slow, sluggish to his fading senses. Ice-cold fury cleared his mind for mere seconds and he tried to wrench away from the restraining hands that were pulling him back towards the institute. He clenched his fingers (fingers that might as well have been blocks of ice) and tried to wrap his hand more tightly around the glass in his fist for one last attempt at defiance.

The anger gave him the strength to lunge away from the constraints, and slash his hand at her. But his face crumpled in pain and he couldn't make it before the arms wound around him again. His head fell forward weakly and his white hair fell around him in a brilliant sheet of silver. Everything was so cold. He looked up at her once more; she was saying something to the doctor, pointing at him. She met his gaze for one moment and flinched away, seeing the pure loathing hidden there.

She'd deceived him, lied to him, she was just like the rest…He would kill her, he would shred her soul for this, for giving him hope and then tearing it away… She would die for her cruelty. She would die for her treachery. She would suffer…suffer…suffer…

The light was too bright, it hurt his eyes, and he turned his face away, trying to lift his lead-weighted hand to shield himself from it.

The bloody glass fell from his cold, immobile fingers and hit the grass softly.

His legs would no longer support him and he collapsed, only to be caught by the doctors that were carrying him back to his prison.

And everything went dark.

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…

The clock struck noon. A small buzz went off, echoing around the perfectly square room, destroying its perfect silence, and yet it seemed muffled, drowned in the darkness of a windowless, lightless, space. A light—small, red, above the door—flicked on, spilling a crimson ink over the walls, the floor, and the person sitting in the corner. A click resounded, and the room's occupant shifted, pressed himself against the wall and sliding up until he was able to get to his feet despite his handicapped arms. His eyes narrowed and he walked forward to the door, waiting for it to open. Anticipating.

Buzz. Click. Another lock opened.

The light flicked on and the occupant moaned in pain, throwing his head against the nearest wall, eyes closed, and stood there waiting for his pupils to shrink, for his underused eyes to adjust to the harsh white light. And finally the door opened.

A doctor, an armed guard, and two nurses filed into the room one after another. Ryou searched each face until he came to the second nurse. "Naomi." He growled.

"I just wanted to introduce you to Miho, Ryou. She's going to be your new nurse." Naomi said softly, looking at him pleadingly.

"_Don't_ call me that. My name is Bakura." He snarled at her. There was a pause where everyone stood wondering what to do next. Then a sadistic smile twisted Ryou's face.

His voice was a calm voice of promise. "I'm going to kill you Naomi." He said pleasantly, a cruel sneer twisting his lips. "I'll get out eventually… The first thing I'll do is find you, and then I'm going to _kill_ you." His voice dropped to a low hiss. "Sleep with your eyes open, because you're going to die with a shard of glass through your throat. Do you know how that will feel, Naomi? Don't worry; I'll make sure it's very painful."

He turned away, head bowed, his shoulders shaking with laughter, the sound echoing around the room, bouncing off the concrete walls.

"I'm sorry, Ryou." Naomi insisted. "But I couldn't let you out… It would've been too dangerous."

The laughter ceased, and the patient froze. Then Ryou turned back to face the group of people standing in his room. His face had softened into a pained, forlorn visage. He looked tired, tired and lost and alone. "I'm sorry, too, Naomi. You know, I really did enjoy spending time with you." He said softly. "I just don't understand, I guess. I'm not insane, Naomi. I promise…It's just different for me. But I'm not crazy." His voice dropped into a whisper.

He walked up to Naomi. The doctor pulled out a syringe and held it ready, and the guard put a hand on his metal baton. The other nurse, who appeared to be the same age as Naomi, looked shocked at the measures that were being taken.

"It's fine." Naomi told them as Ryou came up to her. "He's in a jacket, he can't do anything."

He leaned in, and Naomi struggled to keep her gaze steady with his. Suddenly his face curled yet again into a sneer and his voice fell into a cold snarl that chilled her to the bone. "You're going to regret lying to me, Naomi." He whispered softly. "I swear on my own life you'll regret it."

Naomi frowned and shook her head sadly, taking the tray from Miho and setting it down on the table. The doctor came and unbuckled the straps on Ryou's straightjacket so that he could use his arms to access the food they'd brought him. And then they all left.

The lights went out, just like the day before, and the day before. The comforting darkness enfolded Ryou in a blanket of endlessness, like an entity surrounding him, holding him close, protecting him against his captors, protecting him against harsh reality. There was silence. He stood there, struggling to contain his frustration, and finally just letting it go, losing it to the kind darkness that surrounded him in his little room.

'_One more day, landlord.' _whispered a nonexistent voice. _'It's just another day.' _

Ryou nodded slowly, and replied "Just another day."

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A/N: Okay. There you go. :) I did the work, so please favor me with a little tidbit of feedback. My goal for this oneshot is **15 Reviews **(Wow that's a big one. With this dead fandom? I doubt it, but it never hurts to dream right?). _You--_yes you, the reader who is reading this right at this moment, not the generic general. YOU--could make it happen, and all it would take was a click of a button.

Thank you for reading!


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